“No.” I pointed to the design. “Look at this. I mean, really look at it. If you do, you won’t be able to stop. There’s no way to see it all. And these monks made it out of sand granules over the past couple days.”

Sadie turned and we stared at this mandala until a woman asked for everyone at the front to please make room for others to see. We stepped back and found chairs at the side of the chapel. Windows stretched from the top to the bottom of this sacred space; light spilled into the room as if magnetically drawn by the mandala at its center.

“I bet every single thing on it means something,” I said.

“Yeah.” She pointed toward a group of monks coming in the front door. “I don’t think they’d spend all day making something that didn’t matter.”

The monks entered the space in a procession. They wore yellow robes and yellow hats with large plumes that reminded me of the fake Roman soldiers in front of the Colosseum hawking their photos. “What’s going on?”

She shrugged.

The monk with the name tag took the front microphone and in broken but calm English explained the mandala, how it was made in meditative silence over the past four days; how the sand was dropped through the end of a metal funnel; how this design had an outer, inner, and secret meaning; how its destruction symbolized the impermanence of all that exists; how the sand would be swept up and poured into the river for healing.

“Destroyed?” I whispered to Sadie.

“Maybe they allow it to blow away slowly over time or something.”

Upon reaching the front door of the chapel, the monks walked down the aisle onto the altar, where they each took an instrument. They were lined up in front of the mandala, and the monk in the middle began this low, thrumming noise in his throat, a sound that vibrated through the chapel and into my chest. Tingling began at the edges of my heart and moved outward. The other monks joined, and for the ten minutes they hummed and chanted, my heart slowed. I closed my eyes in that place where monks chanted some sacred promise or blessing, in that place where I was quiet and serene.

A loud gong sounded; crashing cymbals; a bell. I startled and my eyes flew open. My chest seemed to expand. Something that sounded like a bagpipe, but wasn’t, began its haunting melody, and the low, deep voices changed into a sweet chanting that was more like a lullaby.

A monk broke away from the group. He carried a bell and he strolled around the mandala, filling the room with the sweet tenderness of a single bell rung—perfect patience extending across time and space.